According to a recent study conducted on sewing machine operators, picking the correct task / office chair could make the difference between working with pain or without, especially if your job makes you susceptible to neck and/or shoulder pain. Researchers evaluated the rates of neck/shoulder pain during a 4-month period in workers using either a task chair with a flat seat pan or curved seat pan. According to results, researchers found the best chair to minimize neck and shoulder pain was an adjustable height task chair with a curved seat pan. While sewing machine operators experience a higher prevalence of neck and shoulder pain as compared with other working populations, it seems reasonable that when choosing a task chair that most would benefit from an a good quality, adjustable height task chair that includes a curved seat pan.

Today many people are looking to be healthier and live longer. New research shows this can be accomplished by simply modifying the way in which we prepare our foods. According to researchers, the way foods are prepared alters the number of advanced gycation end products (AGEs) or glycotoxins that foods contain and that we ultimately consume. AGEs are abundant in our foods and are responsible for increasing the body's inflammation and oxidative stress. This leads to many age-related diseases including diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease. AGEs are created by interactions of sugars with proteins and fats in the foods we prepare and consume. AGEs are increased by cooking foods longer, at higher temperatures in the absence of water as well as frying foods. Researchers suggest steaming, boiling or stewing food as well as marinating foods with acidic products such as lemon juice, vinegar or other acidic substances to minimize AGEs.

According to research, chronic back pain sufferers experience more than just discomfort, they may also experience significant problems with short-term memory. In this study, the short-term memory of 50 chronic back pain subjects were compared with the short-term memory of 50 pain-free subjects. The results showed chronic back pain subjects had significantly impaired short-term memory as compared with their pain-free counterparts. Researchers believed the short-term memory impairment was due to either the impact that pain and stress had on cognitive function and/or the side effects of steroid treatment that back pain sufferers may have been exposed to. We encourage those with back pain to immediately seek the services of a licensed chiropractor to ensure their back pain does not become chronic and does not begin to affect one’s memory.

According to a recent literature review evaluating the effectiveness of chiropractic spinal manipulation for the treatment of chronic neck pain (neck pain lasting 8 or more weeks), chiropractic spinal manipulation is extremely beneficial for many forms of chronic neck pain. According to researchers, they found "high-quality evidence" that spinal manipulation provided significant pain-level improvements on those suffering from chronic neck pain. Researchers concluded that there was moderate to high quality evidence that subjects with chronic neck pain showed clinically important improvements from a course of chiropractic spinal manipulation at 6, 12 and up to 104 weeks post-treatment. They also added that current evidence did not support a similar level of benefit from massage.